.:. Da Blog .:.: July 2005

My Neighborhood

My Neighborhood

This is a cool little application available for getting almost exact mileage for your walk.

I fiddled around enough! I'm going to call it soup and start posting to it. Check it out if you've got the time. I wound up using WordPress. It's killer. Installing the templates and customizing is a bit of a bear, but easy enough for even me to deal with.

Now "Gallery," a program that manages your photo gallery, is, by my experience (chalk up a day to try and figure it out), impossible to install. I know it's not truly impossible to do, because others have accomplished it with great results, but there were far too many configuration switches for me to get it working correctly. I got it as far as I could, where I could select photos to upload, but then it couldn't use one of the modules. I probably didn't have the module installed correctly on the server, but I finally gave up. I'll just use the script that I have used before.

The whole Gallery thing got started because I wanted to install and use it on the other "family" blog I created this weekend, theBravos.net. The WordPress template I used would supposedly wrap around Gallery so that everything would be in the same style. Oh well.

In other news, it's raining here. Guess we're already getting moisture from that hurricane that's in the Gulf. Rain=Good.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Welp, I'm finally going to update www.loribravo.com. I've been using that site for years as a basically static resume page. It's fugly and old. I've been investigating a number of blog software (I want to host my own). So far I've checked out Pivot (www.pivotlog.net) and Wordpress (www.wordpress.org).

I installed Pivot last night and squirreled around with the templates. The advantage of Pivot is that it's minimal and it doesn't require SQL. The disadvantages of Pivot include the fact that it's minimal and doesn't use SQL. Also, the templates are few and a bit cranky.

I've looked at Wordpress this evening, and it looks like that's what I'll go with. It's more robust and has better documentation than Pivot. Also, there's a ton of open source templates that I can hack to my heart's desire and get a really groovy looking blog.

The main page of the new blog will feature recent posts (of course) and a menu system that will, among other things, include my resume. I also want to use it as a showcase for projects I've worked on. I guess it will be more like a portfolio with commentary than a blog. The "blog" part of it will have links to a variety of web creation / design / scripting sites.

For that reason, I'll most likely leave this blog up (I've been using it on and off since 2000) and just start updating the new one once it's configured to my satisfaction. I could convert all the posts to a new format and upload them, but the new blog is going to be a bit less personal and somewhat more professionally oriented. I'll retain this thing for more extra-curricular stuff.

The Pickle is OK

I picked up Pica from the vet today. Surgery went as planned. She looks a little groggy, but none the worst for wear. She had to stay overnight, and I know she didn't like that. She's acting like she's stoned now though. I'll bet they gave her something to keep her calm.

The vet said her ovary was very abnormal. Just a tiny little thing filled with clear fluid. He said he knew we would have had big trouble if we had waited to do this procedure. So I guess all is well.

Anyway, she's got about an 8 inch incision with a tube coming out of either end. This is for drainage - ugh. They will take it out on Friday, and the stiches won't come out for two weeks.

Here's a pic to completely gross you out:

Makes you almost want to throw up in your mouth a little, doesn't it :)

Pica has surgery

My rat, Pica, is going in for surgery today. She's going to get spayed and have some tumors removed from her belly. Oh joy.

She got sick a few weeks ago. She had a 106 degree fever and red swollen splotches on her belly that turned out to be some form of mammary tumors. I took her to the vet and got antibiotics, and now she feels better than ever, but it's surgery time.

I've been overly concerned about the anesthesia. Since she's an Italian Greyhound, she's very sensitive to barbituate based anesthetics. The vet assures me that he knows what he's doing, so I guess I'll have to just go with that. I've lost too many pets recently, and Pica's very close to me. She's getting up in age though, so I guess I should prepare myself. Still, that's something that even a zoo keeper like me has a hard time thinking about.

My First FARK Photoshop

So I Photoshopped the lamp post. I came in 26th out of 57 entries. Not bad for a first time Photoshop idiot. Now that's a useful way to spend my time, no?

Seriously, there's quite a few talented people on Fark.